"How you holding up today?" he
asked.
"Fine. r m just giving out the medicine."
"It's good to see you here. How long
you been coming now?"
"This is my third week."
"Good man! Some people poop out
after a couple days. Keep on keeping on.
We need all the help we can get."
"I will," Mitchell said, and he pushed
the cart forward.
The man in bed fifty-seven was
propped up on one elbow, watching
Mitchell in a lordly fashion. He had a
fine-boned, patrician face, short hair,
and a sallow complexion.
As Mitchell offered him his pills, the
man said, 'What is the point of these
medications?"
Momentarily startled by his English,
Mitchell said, "I'm not sure what they're
for, exactly. I could ask the doctor."
The man flared his nostrils. "They
are palliatives at best." He made no move
to take them. "An American would
never languish in an institution of this
nature. Isn't that correct?"
"Probably not," Mitchell admitted.
"I should also not be here," the man
said. "Years ago, before my illness, it was
my fortune to serve in the Department
of Agriculture. Perhaps you remember
the famines we had in India. George
Harrison made his famous concert for
Bangladesh. That is what everyone re-
members. But the situation in India was
equally calamitous. Today, as a result of
the changes we made in those times,
Mother India is again feeding her chil-
dren. In the last fifteen years agricultural
output per capita has risen five per cent.
We are no longer importing grain. We
are growing grain in sufficient quanti-
ties to feed a population of seven hun-
dred million souls."
"That's good to know," Mitchell
said.
The man went on as though Mitch-
ell hadn't spoken. "I lost my position
due to nepotism. There is great corrup-
tion in this country. Great corruption!
Then, a few years later, I acquired an in-
fection that devastated my kidneys. I
have only twenty-per-cent kidney func-
tion left. As I am speaking to you, the
impurities are building up in my blood.
Building up to intolerable levels." He
stared at Mitchell with fierce bloodshot
eyes. "My condition requires weekly di-
alysis. I have been trying to tell the sis-
ters this, but they don't understand. Stu-
pid village girls!"
The agronomist glared for a mo-
ment longer. Then, surprisingly, he
opened his mouth like a child. Mitchell
put the pills in the man's mouth, wait-
ing for him to swallow.
When Mitchell finished, he went
to find the doctor, but she was busy in
the female ward. It wasn't until he was
about to leave that he had a chance to
talk with her.
"There's a man here who says he
needs dialysis," he told the doctor.
"I'm sure he does," she said, smiling
sadly, and, nodding, walked of(
T he weekend arrived, and Mitchell
was free to do what he liked. At
breakfast he found Mike hunched over
the table, staring at a photograph.
"You ever been to Thailand?" he said
as Mitchell sat down.
" N t t "
o ye .
"Place is stupendous." Mike handed
the snapshot to Mitchell. "Check out
this girl."
The photograph showed a slender
Thai girl, not pretty but very young,
standing on the porch of a bamboo hut.
" H ' M h " M . k . d " Sh
er name sea, 1 e sal. e
wanted to marry me." He snorted. "I
know, I know. She's a bar girl. But when
we met she'd only been working for like
a week. We didn't even do anything at
first. Just talked. She said she wanted to
learn English, for her job, so we sat at the
bar and I taught her some words. She's
seventeen. We went to Phuket together
for a week. She was like my girlfriend. It
was really nice. Anyway, we get back to
Bangkok, finally, and she tells me she
wants to marry me. Can you believe it?
She said she wanted to come back to the
States with me. I actually thought about
it for a minute, r m not kidding you. You
tell me I could get a girl like that back in
the States? Who would cook and clean
for me? And who's a piece of ass? So,
yeah, I thought about it. But then I'm
taking a piss one day and I get this burn-
ing in my johnson. I thought she'd given
me something! So I went to the bar and
ragged her out. Turned out it was noth-
ing. Just some spermicide or whatever
'1 like to sit facing the room to see if anyone
seated after us gets served before us. "